Posted on Facebook 11 October 2013 by Merle Brown

My dad, Graham Jarvis, sailed with the Union Castle Line from 1950 – 1955. He was an engineer and served on the Pretoria, LLanstephan (including the final journey), Drakensberg, Edinburgh, Arundel and Rhodesia Castles.

We met for coffee this morning and I showed him some of the photos from the recent group posts and he was deeply moved. Two hours and quite a few stories later, we parted with my urging him to write down his memories of that time.

I heard stories involving George Tuck, Percy Partington and Velocity Jones (great name!) as well as a near disaster involving sea water getting into something it shouldn’t – sorry, I can’t remember what it was - he got very technical at this point but he talked of boilers, generators, coils, psi, funnels and so on . . . Here’s a photo of my dad.

Graham Jarvis and K Pothecary aboard Drakensberg Castle

Going ashore in Durban from Drakensberg Castle in 1952.

From left: G Jarvis (Snr 3rd Eng), J McSherry (Int 3rd Eng), H Thornton (Snr 2nd Eng), J Derrigan (Int 2nd Eng), S German (Jnr 2nd Eng), C Heasman (Electrician), K Pothecary (4th Eng).

With Rickshaws in Durban in 1952

From left: J McSherry, K Pothecary and Graham.

Graham and Jimmy ashore in Port Elizabeth in 1952

(Can anyone identify “Jimmy”)

2013 Doing what comes naturally

Graham ashore from Llanstephan Castle in Zanzibar, Sept 1951